Mailchimp vs ConvertKit: Which Email Marketing Tool Is Right For You?

When you start comparing the best email marketing services, you will find that there are dramatic (and not so dramatic) variations between marketing platforms. Of course, they all promise to send email campaigns, but what about everything else? What about the platforms that help you build a subscriber list, create beautiful emails, and offer automation? What about reporting and analytics that show exactly how effective your email marketing is? Once you dive into the features of the best email marketing solutions, it becomes clear that most are using the same tools just with different labels.

It is easy to see how a Comparison of Mailchimp vs ConvertKit helps in this situation. Despite being similar, they both have very distinctive approaches to email marketing. The former seems more at home to businesses running traditional email marketing campaigns, while the latter is more desirable for creators who want to build an email marketing list to engage with their audience.

Beginners usually worry about the following: Which is easier to use? How does the price change as mailing lists grow? Will I have to pay to use features?

Fortunately, both Mailchimp and ConvertKit will meet your needs. Like everything else, your email marketing platform choice will depend on what your end goals are.

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What Are Email Marketing Tools?

Email marketing tools are service providers that help businesses and individuals manage email outreach campaigns. Think of all the ways mailing lists need to be segmented, emails designed, follow-up campaigns created, analytics, and reports generated, and more. Email marketing tools provide solutions to manage business outreach campaigns in a timely and orderly way.

Imagine you run an online bakery. Sending a weekly recipe to the first twenty subscribers on your list is easy. But what happens when you have 5,000 subscribers? You need software to manage subscriber data, set up recurring campaigns, automate a welcome series, and provide reporting on how subscribers engage with your emails.

There are different priorities when considering the different email marketing tools that exist. There are tools that specialize in campaigns used for traditional, brick and mortar businesses. There are others built for creators used for personal brand marketing built for automated audience marketing.

Complexity of the tool isn’t always the indicator of the best tool. As an example, a simple tool may be preferred by a freelancer with a small email list, but a more complex tool may be needed by a business that is growing.

Enrollment in Email Marketing Tools

The first reason people enroll in an email marketing service is to manage large email lists that would be challenging to manage with multitude of manual tasks. Let’s say you have a Food Blog and have 30 email subscribers. Though you love creating recipes, it may be tedious to manage your email subscribers at 5,000 next year.

The second reason is automating tasks such as sending an email to a customer with follow up emails. Email automation helps creators scale their email marketing, Like an online course creator, one example is a system that would send a new subscriber a welcome email and an educational email every day.

Organizing subscribers. Not all subscribers have the same interests. A fitness website might have subscribers interested in running, strength training, or nutrition. It usually makes no sense to send the same content to all subscribers and audience segmentation solves this problem.

Performance measurement. Sending an email is only the start. You have to determine if your email was effective. If a promotional email receives little to no response, a business needs performance data to determine what they need to change to better motivate their audience.

Consistent communication. It is easy for newsletters to slip off the radar when things get busy. A freelance designer who puts off their newsletter to do client work benefits from a scheduling tool that maintains the newsletter communications.

Growing an online business. As an online business grows, using email becomes one of the primary ways to communicate with your customers, sell to your customers, and promote to your customers. This is why many Mailchimp and ConvertKit style email platforms exist- to help email marketing with the automation tools that businesses need.

How to Choose Between Mailchimp and ConvertKit

There are a ton of email platforms to select from and a fun interface is nice, but if the platform has too many features and lacks a workflow that meets your personal workflow, you might hate it in six months.

1. Figure out what you want to accomplish

1. Figure out what you want to accomplish. A small business that sends out a newsletter each week has less complex needs than a creator who has a membership or sells courses that requires a robust email platform. Don’t select a platform just because it was mentioned by a big creator- their business could be very different from yours.

2. Analyze costs at your forecasted list size

2. Analyze costs at your forecasted list size. What’s affordable at 500 can be cost-prohibitive at 10,000. Look past your current situation and assess future milestones. What are the costs of each and what features can I expect at each level?

3. Consider how you build emails

3. Consider how you build emails. A formal business may want more polished promotional emails; a creator may want to send more informal texts. Focus on the process that works for your content over an email builder that’s impressive in demonstrations.

4. Automation

4. Automation. Taking automation into account early on is important to avoid building a strategy around something that will need to be completely redone down the line. For example, a photography site could send a series of emails, one with a welcome message, another with a beginner’s resource, and finally with an offer for a course. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should; try to solve a problem.

5. How you organize subscribers

5. How you organize subscribers. Segmentation can be a good option if your audience has interests that aren’t related, like if you have a strength-training audience and a running audience. Don’t create so many segments that it’s a burden to manage.

6. Analyze both systems

6. Analyze both systems. Reading reviews is good, but only to an extent. If you have the option for a free trial, a good idea is to create a campaign. You need to add contacts, write emails, create sequences, and see if you like the reporting. Comparing the two systems is the best way to see which system is better; doing a quick summary of each isn’t the best way to judge the two overall.

7. Execute the migration process to verify things work

7. EXECUTE THE MIGRATION PROCESS TO VERIFY THINGS WORK. Migrations require planning regardless of if you do a fresh build or if you try to move your customer lists, forms, automations and campaigns. Assuming something moves in its entirety across the systems alone has bitten many people before. Go verify things move first.

8. Think past the free automations

8. THINK PAST THE FREE AUTOMATIONS. Free tiers exist to give you a head start. The software you decide to bet on for your future workflows isn’t decided based on which software you choose for the next few weeks. Features that feel moot now can provide a better user experience and monetization options for you in the future.

9. Consider the interface

9. CONSIDER THE INTERFACE. Knowing a platform has lots of capabilities isn’t very useful if you hate using it and constantly get lost using it. Test out the dashboard, editors, participant tools and reporting. Think about if you can take your weekly workflow and do it over and over each week.

10. Rank it against your actual priorities

10. RANK IT AGAINST YOUR ACTUAL PRIORITIES. After the tests are done and everything is cleaned up, the best way to decide is to create a boiled down list and compare on ease of use, price, automation, audience segmentation and reporting. Be careful of a winner takes all assumption since that isn’t how winning should be decided for the software that’s the best fit for your audience and personal goals.

The best software isn’t thought of as the software with the most tools. The best software is thought of as the software that helps you do your job with the least amount of work.

Expert Tips

Test the Journey of Every Subscriber

Don’t test the editor to find bugs, test your creation by signing up for your newsletter! Sign up through your site and see what the confirmation process and emails are like. Read and respond to messages to learn more about engaged subscribers and broken links that impact the subscriber experience. Create an alias email address for your tests.

Audience Understanding Comes First, Then Automation

Even if you’ve created an email sequence that looks sophisticated, you risk wasting time if you don’t understand what your readers are most curious about. You’ll never go wrong by starting with a simple, useful, welcome email. After that, build out your sequence based on your audience’s interests.

Subscriber Quantity vs Subscriber Quality

A creator with 10K unengaged readers is not as powerful as one with 3K highly engaged readers, no matter the subscriber count. Focus on active, valued subscribers rather than growing your overall audience.

Email Before Design

Writing tons of email design prompts may seem appealing, but try sending emails in plain text first. Simple design prompts may work best after you’ve written something valuable, and in many cases, the design of your email should serve your message rather than distract from it.

Design For Your Future Self

Design the subscriber management system you need for your future business. Invest in a scalable system to ensure you can grow your newsletter while still running your business.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Considering the cheapest plans may leave you unprepared down the road. These plans may have hidden costs that run high once you have a long list and many of the features you need to run your business. These additional costs may be unanticipated when choosing a plan.
• Just because other creators, ecommerce businesses, and local businesses use a certain platform, does not mean you should. These different entities have different needs.
• How emotionally invested are you in your own list? Do you know what separate experiences your subscribers are getting?
• It’s easy to get carried away, but you should always remember to keep it simple. You make things overcomplicated without realizing it, and things may start to fall apart.
• You don’t need a ton of subscribers to be successful. The quality of your audience is more important than the amount of people on your list.
• Migration can be a very time-consuming and tedious process. You have to shift all of your automated emails, marketing and contact forms, and ensure all of your email campaigns are functioning again.
• There is a fine line you have to balance. Too much time put towards designing emails will lead to no one receiving your emails.
• Email campaigns should be sent with links and formatting checked, as well as personalization. Just because you can send to your list, doesn’t mean you should.

Pros and Cons of Email Marketing Tools

Pros

Pros: Email marketing tools take some of the workload of management off of your shoulders. With these tools, you can set up welcome and follow-up messages and scheduled campaigns. You can see how your email marketing messages perform and how effective they are. These tools help you personalize messages with email templates, create professional emails, and help you automate messages based on audience interest. You can rest assured you won’t outgrow the tool.

Cons

Cons: Skyrocketing costs with a long list; a graduate level understanding of automation and segmentation; too many features can make simple tasks complex; migrations between platforms are sometimes time-consuming; if you have automated sequences you have to check your offers and links; just having the software doesn’t guarantee you will have a successful marketing plan; there are companies that do one thing really well and there are companies that do many things. The type of user that one company helps may not be the same user that the other company helps; Marketing automation tools should be considered the supporting players in your marketing strategy; automation is useful, but don’t underestimate good content.

Email marketing software should be considered a supporting player in your marketing strategy; its value is highly dependent on how well it fits your workflow and how consistently you use it.

Individual Questions

Is Mailchimp better than ConvertKit for beginners?

Is Mailchimp better than ConvertKit for beginners?

It depends on your goals but neither is objectively better; a traditional newsletter differs from a creator audience building newsletter. The workflows are different, so decide for yourself.

Can I use either platform to develop a small audience?

Can I use either platform to develop a small audience?

Yes, and it’s totally okay to start setting up your workflow before your audience grows. Check your plan/tier, as they all have a limit for the number of subscribers, and see what features the plan/tier includes.

Can I move my email list from Mailchimp to ConvertKit?

Can I move my email list from Mailchimp to ConvertKit?

Yes, but it takes time, as subscriber data, forms, segments, automations, and campaigns all usually need to be addressed separately. Don’t rush moving a large list; create a new account and run tests of key workflows.

Better platforms for creators?

The most important factors creators look for in a platform include a direct connection with subscribers, consistent content publications, and the ability to set automated sequences. Different creators have different needs, and therefore, one platform can’t be considered ‘the best’ for everyone. Decide based on your publishing and monetization goals.

Will I need a separate tool for newsletters?

You can technically send newsletters on your own, but as an audience size grows, so do the benefits of using a dedicated tool. These tools offer subscriber management, scheduling, and performance reports. Very small personal lists can get by without one. Growing publications benefit from a tool designed for managing newsletters.

Will these tools send automated welcome emails?

Automated emails are very common, and for example, would be sent for new subscribers that signed up for a free guide. Relevant sequences should be designed, and updated when offers change.

Should I switch from Mailchimp to ConvertKit?

If the new platform involves a significant improvement, such as easier workflows, better audience targeting, or a better fit for content, then it may be worth the switch. First, define the problem, then only if ConvertKit solves this problem should it be considered a switch.

Do I need to know how to code to use email marketing tools?

Not at all, many email marketing tools are no-code visual builders. While these tools are very simple to use, some advanced automation or integrations will have a learning curve. Start with the basics to get a grasp of the tool.

Which email marketing service do you recommend for my small business?

The right answer depends on your content and audience, not the number of emails you send. It’s better to have irregular email intervals where you actually send useful information, than regularly scheduled emails that are simply a time-filler and risk annoying your audience.

If I stop sending emails, will my audience forget me?

It is true that an audience that does not engage will eventually be lost, but it is also a good time for you to assess the email content and the subject lines that you are using to decide if you want to continue to send out emails to sleeping audience members.

Conclusion

I know you are looking for a center point, but deciding between Mailchimp and ConvertKit really depends on how you plan to engage your audience and the kind of budget that you have set for your growth.

While both email marketing platforms can help you with subscriber list management, campaign building, and sending automated messages to your clients, the key differences and most importance to some users tends to be in the creation of emails, organization of subscribers, their preference for automation, and the overall workflow management.

Don’t let a long list feature be deciding factor just because you are a new user. What do you really need to get your email marketing program started, and what direction do you plan to take it in.

Monitor the pricing, and consider how much your list is projected to grow, especially if you set aggressive growth objectives.

Most of all, check out both platforms. Build a test campaign. Experience the mailing list journey. Determine if the automation workflows fit. There is no overall winner of Mailchimp vs ConvertKit. The best option is the platform you learn, use frequently, and can grow with.